Model Lab · evidence for your home search

Understand the market behind your shortlist.

Compare buying conditions, test your budget, and explore model predictions alongside their actual outcomes.

Market tools and forecast evaluations cover the eight research cities. Compare prices and historical changes across all 25 cities →

Choose your cities

Compare up to three of the eight research cities.

Your shortlist
Price forecasts · experimental

Explore a thesis, then check its record

The current annual forecasts use three price and tax-base signals. None earned selection over matching the county. The new Market outlook predicts contract time in days. It has its own weights and track record; cost scenarios and jobs/housing evidence also answer different questions.

See each family’s research and validation status →

Understand the models, then choose weights

These three models test price and tax-base signals. Each learns a relationship from earlier data, then estimates the city's next-year home-value growth relative to San Mateo County. An input is not itself a prediction.

None passed the original selection test. “Match the county” remains the selected baseline. The models share data and a study design; agreement is not independent confirmation.

Momentum · experimental

Recent price performance

Does how a city performed recently help predict its next year?

What it measures
The city's home-value growth over the past 12 months, minus San Mateo County's growth over those same months.
Made-up example · input only
City values rise 12% and county values rise 8%. The input is +4 percentage points of recent outperformance.
How to interpret it
The fitted relationship can favor a reversal. This model does not simply predict that recent winners keep winning; “Repeat recent relative growth” is the separate rule that does that.
Exact input calculation and earlier test

City 12-month percentage change − county 12-month percentage change.

Average absolute prediction error in the earlier model-selection test: 1.601 percentage points. County baseline: 1.346. Lower is better; selection also required consistency across years.

Relative value · experimental

Price gap versus history

Does a change in a city's usual price relationship to the county help predict its next year?

What it measures
Today's city-to-county home-value ratio, compared with its average over the preceding 60 months.
Made-up example · input only
The city's index is 80% of the county index today, versus an average of 88% previously. The model's gap input is +10%: 88 ÷ 80 − 1.
How to interpret it
This measures relative price level, not relative growth or affordability. A positive gap is not proof of a bargain and does not imply a 10% price rise.
Exact input calculation and earlier test

100 × (average of the preceding 60 monthly city/county ratios ÷ current ratio − 1). The current month is excluded from the average.

Average absolute prediction error in the earlier model-selection test: 1.398 percentage points. County baseline: 1.346. Lower is better; selection also required consistency across years.

Assessment growth · experimental

Taxable property growth

Does growth in the taxable property base help predict home-value growth?

What it measures
Three-year growth in the city's net assessment roll, minus the county's growth. The roll is the taxable value of property, across property classes.
Made-up example · input only
The city's taxable property total grows 12% over three years and the county's grows 8%. The input is +4 percentage points.
How to interpret it
Tax rules and multiple property classes affect this total. It is not a home-price index, city revenue, or a direct measure of jobs or commercial growth.
Exact input calculation and earlier test

City three-year net assessment-roll percentage change − county change. Use January of the year before the July feature cutoff, with a three-year lookback. This assumed lag is not verified historical publication timing.

Average absolute prediction error in the earlier model-selection test: 1.392 percentage points. County baseline: 1.346. Lower is better; selection also required consistency across years.

Weights total 0%. Set whole percentages totaling 100% to see a blend.

A 50% weight means half of that model's prediction contributes to the mix. It does not mean a 50% chance the model is right. Zero removes a model; changing weights does not retrain it. The exact equal-weight average stays visible as a comparison.

Choose a city to inspect the models.

Methods, versions and source files

Component forecasts were issued 2026-09-15T02:02:10Z. model-lab-v1 uses the original housing-screen-v1 rules and data. Every model shares the same target, benchmark, home type, cutoff and horizon. A missing selected prediction withholds the blend; no weight is silently reassigned.

Earlier validation selected the county baseline. The original decision and paper record stay unchanged. Scores here are recomputed from blended predictions, not averaged component errors.

Download all component predictions, historical outcomes and source hashes · Read the original track record

Source manifest SHA-256: 46f922fcefd73314d74781232e4679632900b1fe429ec6af31c61ab00df388d7